About Us
Who Are We
We are Larry and Mary Peceniak. We own and operate a very small, family-owned orchard in Homer Township, Illinois. We first opened to the public in the early 1990s. We are now retired, so orchard care is Larry’s full time occupation.
Our little farm includes a few animals: two dogs, two cats, two chickens (hopefully more in the future).
Larry grew up with a little apple orchard on the side of the family home. When he bought his first house he found room for 25 apple trees on a city lot. He learned to graft the variety he wanted onto a dwarf rootstock so he could raise old apple varieties, always in search of a great tasting apple. The current property on Oak Avenue has seen over 100 varieties come and go as priorities changed. We found that the newer disease resistant varieties need little intervention to prevent the fungus called “scab”, that sniffles leaf growth and can spread to the fruit. The old varieties can be delicious tasting, but the health of the trees and apples required chemicals and much work to maintain. As we reduced chemical intervention to prevent the scab, the orchard was switched to our favorite new, naturally disease resistant varieties such as Liberty, William’s Pride, Enterprise and our fall favorite, the Illinois state apple, Gold Rush, to name just a few. Most of the trees standing now were planted in the late nineties, early 2000s. However, we are gradually transforming the area we nick named “The Adventure Orchard” into a new system of planting trees 3 foot apart and training them to horizontal wires. With our new NO CIDES policy, no fungicides, no herbicides, no insecticides, the trees are chosen for flavor primarily and durability secondarily. Soil health has become a priority as well. The technical term is regenerative agriculture. Soil health, leads to tree health, leads to fruit health, with an end result of healthy nutrition for our customers and our family. The down side is this leaves an opening for insects. As beneficial insects move into the “cide free” orchard, the balance will tip in favor of better looking fruit. In the mean time, ugly fruit makes great tasting pies!